Hack All the Things in the Time You Save with This LED Pomodoro Timer

Do you want to use your time more productively but are tomato-averse? [Robin]’s LED Pomodoro timer could be the perfect hack for you.

The Pomodoro Technique is a time management solution developed in the late 1980s. The basic idea is to spend a very focused 25 minutes performing some activity such as working or studying and then take a 5-minute break. Many of its proponents use a tomato-shaped kitchen timer to alert them to switch between the two states, but [Robin] wanted to make his own and learn along the way.

First, he wanted to use an ATtiny85 and learn about its features. Specifically, he used its timers, PWM, and low-power sleep mode. [Robin] used Charlieplexing to drive a total of six LEDs. When the timer starts, five yellow LEDs are driven high to indicate each 5-minute slice of work time. A red LED is lit during the 5-minute break.

[Robin] also explored compact PCB design and fabrication. All components are SMD and his board is 4cm square. [Robin] is using this SMD buzzer for discrete feedback. He included a footprint for a six-pin ISP header and programmed it with pogo pins. The timer is completely interrupt-driven: one click of the tactile button starts the work counter, and the buzzer sounds when time is up. A second click starts the break counter.

[Robin] has made everything available in his GitHub repo and encourages you to use it. Time’s a-wastin’!

There’s an App for that. Seems a tad superfluous making a custom bit of hardware to do what every smartphone can already do. Plus the app’s turn off the distractions that are on the phone (i.e. ringing, email alerts, sms alerts, etc.).

*shrug* My job would be fine with it (electrical engineer.) And I would assume any job that is project based would also be fine with it.

Any job where you are required to use your brain and concentration, how much productivity are you going to get out of someone if they are mentally fatigued? It’s not like you really stop thinking about it when you walk away. I find that when I am stuck on a problem that if I head out for a walk around the building I usually come back in with the solution. Sometimes I pull out my hand-held tetris game and play a round. My mind is still working on the problem, I am just giving it a break from the pressure.

If your productivity depends on your creativity, concentration, and problem solving skills, there is no point in trying to force it. It doesn’t work.

In fact, I think that’s the entire goal of this. For one, if you have multiple projects going on, it is too easy to get overwhelmed trying to work on all of them at once. What happens is that you end up just spinning your wheels on each one and they take much longer than it would if you could just focus on one at a time. And finally when the deadlines approach, you drop everything else and focus and magically you are done in no time.

My work actually has re-iterated through training sessions this exact technique several times (but didn’t give us timers.)

There are two reasons. 1/ I wanted to keep the board low-profile, nothing is sticking out more than 3-4 mm. 2/ I didn’t have any lying around ;)
To be honest, I cheated a bit and soldered a header on my first prototype when I was actively developing the code and uploads were frequent.

If you want to stop solder tracking down unmasked copper, you can use an old plumbing trick. If you draw a line across the track with a regular graphite pencil, the graphite will act as an anti-flux, stopping the solder from sticking to the copper. Try it on a copper pipe, if you mark it with a pencil, the solder will not stick.

I hope it took less than 25 minutes to design.. or bing bing fail! heh.. but seriously, I like the timed work idea, but just cant be forced to take a break sometimes, while other times I take too many. hmm..

Ok yeah. I can see it doing great things for me on my list of procrastinated projects. Get 20 minutes of good hard work on it, followed by ‘mendokusai’ time (cant be bothered.. back to procrastinating).

I’m using this same style battery and clip holder for a project of mine. I want to put a gold contact pad on the negative contact (to prevent oxidation on the pad). But repeated searches on Digikey have been fruitless. Anyone have a part #? Any help would be appreciated.